Klamath Falls, OR Fire, Sept 1920

Ruins Flooded and Searched in Effort to Determine the Extent of Holocaust; Babe Flung to Safety by Woman

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore., Sept. 6 - (By Associated Press) - Firemen working in the ruins estimated that at least twenty-five bodies are still within the smoldering debris. Heat has prevented recovery of the bodies.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore., Sept. 6 - Nine persons are known dead, five missing and seven injured as a result of a fire which destroyed the Houston Hotel, a rooming house and a theater, doing a quarter million dollars damage here early today.

Firemen are drenching the smoldering ruins with water in an effort to cool them off sufficiently to permit a further search for bodies, believing it possible more dead may be buried in the ashes.

Search May Increase Casualty Lists
The city was crowded with workmen and others who had come to Klamath Falls for the big Labor Day celebration today. While the Houston Hotel, where the dead were found, normally accommodates fifty persons, it was believed that approximately 100 were registered there last night. Police and volunteers are attempting to make a check this morning which may reveal a still heavier loss of life.

Mother Throws Babe And Leaps From Window.
The fire spread to the HENDRICH apartment house and the ARGRAVES rooming house, which were also destroyed, as were six residences.

MRS. W. B. BARNES, who conducted the Houston rooming house, believes the death toll will reach at least fifteen and perhaps twenty.

The guests of the hotel, which was a tall wooden frame structure and burned rapidly, were trapped within the hotel, and although firemen made valiant efforts to save them many died.

MRS. MARY CAMORA was on the first floor of the hotel with her five-day-old baby. She rushed to a front window and threw the child, unhurt, to the waiting arms of firemen. Then she leaped and now is in the hospital among the injured.

Four Women Among The Known Dead
The known dead include four women.

Owing to the confusion and the loss of the hotel records the names of the dead have not been definitely established thus far.

The fire started at 3 a. m. in a rubbish pile in the rear of the hotel, the fire spreading to the hotel. The flames leaped the street, burning the rooming house opposite the hotel. Several buildings in addition to the hotel, rooming house and theater were damaged.